What’s in Your Bed? September 11, 2009

I read somewhere that if you’re single, you should always sleep in the middle of the bed. This is good feng shui because it represents that you’re complete in yourself. By sleeping in the middle of the bed, you distract the universe from the pooling vortex of singlehood angst and thwarted couplehood that an empty half of the bed attracts (and God help you if you sleep next to an unused pillow).

So I sometimes feel guilty for sleeping on the side of my bed, as if I am not an enlightened single.

I have three beds: single, full, and a king-sized. If I sleep in the middle of the full one, how am I supposed to reach the nightstand light? If I sleep in the middle of the king, then getting up in the darl to pee becomes like a fouled-up arctic expedition as I stumble on all fours over lumps of chilled comforter wondering, “Which way is the bathroom?”

But I manage to fool the universe and quiet the vortex by filling that empty space beside me with other things. At various times, and sometimes simultaneously, I have had in my bed the following pleasure items (yeah, all you readers who found this blog via searches for “nut sucking” wish it were going to be that kind of post):

–My laptop so that I can lie on my side and play Rosetta Stone language learning software (“the bananas are in the basket; the cat is real; the boy is under the airplane”)

–A notebook filled with ideas that were great at 3 a.m. but indecipherable by daylight (“Roger! And the full monkey doesn’t sic after all!”)

–A silk lavender eye pillow

–My mangy stuffed doggy who fits perfectly under my neck as a support pillow

–A rolled up towel for putting under my spine

–My bite guard because it fell out of my mouth

–Some crumbs of rye toast

–The plate those crumbs of rye toast came from

Yet despite how indispensable all these items are to my nightly comfort routines, that long-ago advice about sleep location still haunts me, and I occasionally feel that I should clear my pleasure items away so I can lie in the middle of the bed. I guess I could solve the whole problem by simply sleeping in my single bed. In a single bed, everywhere is the middle! But that bed is in my dressing room (yes, I have a dressing room in my single girl townhome–do all those smug married couples smooshing their faces together in Facebook profile pics have their own dressing rooms? I think not!). I can’t sleep in the dressing room bed because I use it as ahorizontal closet to drape my dress slacks on.

Copious Readers, what do you have in your bed?

–Christina

P.S. This post would not be complete if I didn’t pause here to reflect on some bedding nomenclature. Isn’t it interesting to think about the difference between a “single” and a “full” mattress? Does “full” mirror society’s conception that couplehood somehow completes a single? Lest you think I might be reading too deeply into the names, let me point out that the subsequent sizes queen and king seem to reflect the historical ranking of men and women: the female is smaller, slightly less desired than the male. Just saying.

The only thing in my queen-sized bed, other than me, is my cat (gotta echo Alan – cats make rolling over an adventure). I actually never thought about where I sleep as making a statement about my singlehood. I almost always fall asleep on the side near the bedstand so I can reach the light but I’ve woken up in every position from curled up on the other side, to sprawled diagonally or smack in the middle. I think it’s just whatever you’re used to.

I say good luck to any couple that shares a “full” bed every single night. If I ever couple, I’d get both a king size bed and a bigger bed room so it would fit.

I don’t put any stuff in my bed. It’s supposedly not good for sleeping if you have a cluttered bed or do anything besides sleep in it. Although, once my doctor gave me a pamphlet on how to improve sleep, and it said not to use the bed for anything “but sleep and sex.” I think they only added sex because they thought people might think a crazy idea that sex and beds or sex and sleep can be separated from one another. It doesn’t seem to make sense- according to this pamphlet it’s not good to read in bed, but sex, that’s ok, that won’t interfere with sleep…

Anyway, I sleep in the dead center of my full bed sprawl out to fill up the whole thing.

Interesting, Lauri! Yes, why would sex be ok but reading not? I think it’s all what you identify as your “nighttime ritual”. I know many people who cannot sleep without reading a little sumpin’ first, including me. I guess for me that ritual offsets the bad sleep feng shui of having clutter in the bed.

I start on one side of the bed and migrate to the other side, depending on if/how many children are in the bed. *note: I’m a single mom, not a pervert* The only thing besides children allowed in my bed is whatever book I feel asleep reading.

Lauri ~ I think the reason that sex and sleep are allowable activities in bed is that both are controlled by the same area of the brain. Most people become sleepy after sex.

I guess some people become sleepy after sex, and some people become sleepy after reading the pamphlet “About Your Immune System” (this is the latest thing that worked for my insomnia). SP, we love to hear from single parents so please don’t be shy!
CC

There is sleep in my bed.. Yay sleep!! There are also many large pillows and kitty. While the pillows often end up on the floor during the night, I love to cozy in- like MamaBear’s Bed. Kitty has just learned to adjust when I turn over or am restless. For that reason, I don’t sleep with anything that is dangerous, like plates or hard-cover books. Besides, I hate waking up startled because something heavy hit the floor. Okay, that happened after 2am pizza a few weeks ago.
I usually fall asleep on one side or another, then make a gradual shift diagonally throughout the night. I love being able to flail my arms and legs out for a good stretch, and it’s cooler to sleep this way. So, I guess diagonally is feng-shui too, since I’m occupying the middle of the bed on the bias.
I suddenly want to take a nap.

LOVED this post, because I migrated to the middle around two years ago and co-sleep with my laptop….I love your creative voice and snorted about Rosetta Stone…am thinking about German! Thanks Christina!

At the moment, I have a twin, so there’s not much difference between left, right, and middle. This is the one case in which it’s an advantage to be short and tiny, though, because somehow I still manage to stretch out when I need to! Other habitual bedmates are stuffed animals, extra pillows, and sometimes a cat.

At the moment I have a large pillow in the bed because I recently fractured my collarbone and want to ensure I don’t roll over onto that side because it would be major ouchies. The bed can also contain 0-2 guitars or guitar cases especially if I am in the front bedroom. The rear bedroom is smaller which suggests that the bed ought to contain more stuff but in fact it doesn’t.